As I see it, it's a confluence of things which have captured the zeitgeist:
Larian D:OS games have been very well received.
Baldur's Gate and the Infinity Engine games are beloved.
Final Fantasy XVI, the big JRPG for the year, is squarely an action game and some view that as off-kilter. Baldur's Gate 3, the big CRPG for the year, is squarely an RPG.
D&D is a big property and new D&D games often gain a fair bit of attention.
People seem to appreciate having no in-game purchases.
These five things, in my opinion, have pushed Baldur's Gate 3 to the front of media outlets and, in turn, to the forefront of conversations.
It was straight-up free (as in: no tiers, just free) for a long time to early adopters of the Nvidia Shield. I can't remember when it was introduced but I think it was with the first iteration of Shield TV.
I wouldn't be surprised if there's a patent Microsoft just hasn't been willing to license use of.
I remember when the Sixaxis came out. It was missing vibration. It was because Immersion sued Sony (and ultimately won) over patent infringement of rumble motors. Sony ended up having to pay somewhere around $100 million.
I can't comment on this title in particular but if you load it on your PS5 and receive a toast which reads something to the effect of "when playing on PS5, this game may exhibit errors or unexpected behavior" then it means some part of the game is absolutely fucked up but still "playable."
For example, Star Ocean: Till the End of Time messes up very late in to the game on the PS5 where a space ship environment zooms very far out, the controls become locked in such a way where camera control doesn't work, and directional movement controls seem arbitrarily mapped. While someone more patient and talented than I may have been able to navigate through that issue, I couldn't proceed until I continued the game on my PS4 via cloud save transfer.
I've rarely considered it beyond functionality. I'll play a female in a fighting game if I like how the character plays. If the choice is purely aesthetic, I generally just choose whatever the default is. In Dark Souls III, I played a female because I thought I could make a beautiful character (and I think I did)
While by no means required, getting an extra set or two of navigation rulers can be really helpful. You can just put them together at different lengths so you don't have to mark and move a bunch of ships out of the way when you only want to move forward at a speed of 2 but the 4-end of the ruler is getting in the way.
Armada is a fabulous game with a rich set of lists to choose from due to the objective-based gameplay. The Rebel side is losing options with a lack of squadrons but that's fine.
Note that haven't played Armada competitively since 2017; so, things may have changed since then. However, back then, there was, in my opinion, a big problem with how tournaments were played. Because Armada is such a long game and because players expect swiss rounds (read: a full day of gaming), tournaments couldn't determine top 4 by W-L record alone. So instead, they implemented an 11-point scoring system which heavily favored tabling your opponent. As a consequence, competitive lists tended to be nearly identical.
That may have changed since then. However, if not, understand that you may have to adjust lists you find to suit the models you have. Regardless, the game is brilliant and a ton of fun. I would wager you will have a blast with what you've purchased.